


I Can't Believe You Sometimes

by br_kenglass



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Dialogue Heavy, Keith gets hit with the feels, Matt and Keith are being completely platonic here, Other, Sad with a Happy Ending, Short One Shot, i ship katt but this isn't a katt story sorry guys, this is basically me filling in for the interaction we deserved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-06 12:55:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17345603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/br_kenglass/pseuds/br_kenglass
Summary: Matt goes to Keith after the stunt he pulled with the particle barrier shield. Or rather, the stunt he nearly pulled, had it not been for Lotor's convenient timing.





	I Can't Believe You Sometimes

**Author's Note:**

> you're chasing nothing but false hope if you expect me to believe Matt didn't cut into Keith with his words after the "maybe not with our weapons" bullshit lol
> 
> he means it all in a concerned way though, not trying to make Keith feel bad (not on purpose :P)

While everyone was busy with the new situation at hand, Lotor didn't show up just to be nice, Matt cornered Keith inside the Castle of Lions. His heart had been beating so hard in a panic when he saw Keith's jet flying straight for the particle barrier. No matter how hard he tried to bury the worrying feeling building up in his mind, his words were still caught in his throat as he tried to think of something to say.

Keith leaned against the wall, head dipped down low in... shame? Guilt? Regret? Neither of them knew, but neither of them really wanted to find out either. The silence was eating away at him.  _Just say something_ , he mentally begged.  _Just tell me what's on your mind already, Matt. This is torture._ He was trained endlessly by the Blade of Marmora to put the mission above all else. It had taken a whole lot of focus and struggle to put up with their ways and Keith couldn't understand why  _no one else_ would try to see things from his side. They weren't the ones who had one chance to find their long lost parent after being outed as a half-blooded screw up whose roots could be traced onto the enemy's side of the war. Sure, they'd say he wasn't a screw up, but the rest was still a fact. He wanted to hate his team, he really did, for always assuming he was okay with dying. Assuming that he was okay with his fellow Blade dying. If it meant the mission was a success, why not, right? Well, they were wrong! Keith didn't want any of it, but he had to follow his orders or else his chance of finding his mom would be thrown away.

The raven-haired male dared a look at Matt's face, contorted with too many emotions to read all at once. What he saw shocked him down to his core.

Matt had tears in his eyes.

"You... you are so─," the rebel fighter sucked in a quick breath. He didn't even bother to wipe at the corners of his eyes or hide how shaken up he was by the tiresome battle they fought. "What were you  _thinking_ , Keith? You can't just─ You can't resort to using yourself as some sort of weapon all the time! Okay?! You're so important to this team, they  _need_ you, the whole damn universe needs you!"

"What would  _you_ know, huh?" Keith didn't mean for it to come off as vicious as it had sounded. Not the part of him that felt bad about making his team worry. But the rage of everyone thinking they knew better than he did started to rush through his veins. He glared at Matt, silently challenging him to keep at it. "The Blade of Marmora has a policy, one simple policy, and I thought everyone understood that already. We're fighting a war, Matt. If you haven't noticed, we can't get overly emotional about every little person who knows what they signed up for. Everyone who rises up to the battlefield is ready to lay their lives down for─"

"You're wrong."

"Excuse me? Maybe I'm not wrong, maybe you're just too dumb to get it through your thick skull!"

The brunette scoffed and shoved Keith back against the wall, fist curled against his collarbone. The front of his hood was clumped up in Matt's grip. "You. Are.  _Wrong._ " Matt leveled Keith's piercing stare with one of his own, just as intimidating. If Keith weren't so stubborn, he'd admit that Matt could strike fear in him sometimes. "The people who rise against Zarkon and the Galra empire aren't ready to sacrifice themselves. Not most of them. They chose to be at our sides under the condition that we try our hardest to free their people, to save what's at risk of being lost to those assholes. They didn't agree to die, Keith. They agreed to  _try_. We all did."

His words were different from what the others would normally say. Whenever it came to such a sensitive topic, everyone else on the team would either avoid it or brush it off with an 'I know it's our job'. But Matt... Matt made it seem like something more than just 'If we lose, we die'. He made Keith realize that it wasn't like that, not for anyone out there. Keith saw his reflection in Matt's pupils. He saw someone who was barely entering adulthood, forced into a fate he didn't ask for, fighting for something he hated to admit he was losing hope for. He saw someone weak inside.

As if his silence was a cue to go on, Matt continued with his argument.

"I know none of us want to be here anymore. Each and every day we spend out here is either another day lost or another day closer. And when we win?  _If_ we win? Who's to say we'll even make it back home to Earth?" The last bit hit a nerve in both of them. Matt's intense stare faltered slightly, his grip loosening just a bit. "And yet, even with all that burned into the back of our minds, each person on this side of the war still tries their hardest. Call it what you want─ false hope, delusion, helpless desire ─but I know for a  _fact_ that it wouldn't be the same without you, Keith. You're more than what you think you are or what the Blade conditioned you to believe. You entered this fight as a strong soul willing to risk it all and do whatever it takes to save the innocent lives out there because you were one yourself. To save the families you dreamed you could still have or could find. How are you supposed to do that when you're  _dead_ _?_ " Matt's chest heaved as he was out of breath from his rant. He hadn't even noticed just how bad Keith was shaking under his hold. Matt didn't see the tears pricking at Keith's eyes or the way his lip quivered or how he just looked so broken, like he'd fall apart at any minute.

"I... I-I didn't want to," Keith choked out. "I-I didn't want to listen to Kolivan all those times he made us abandon a teammate because the mission 'mattered more'. Seeing so many people I cared about just... die... Please, Matt, I'm so─ I-I'm so sorry." He fell apart, letting all his walls down. Really, it felt more like they were crumbling apart at an alarming rate. Suddenly all his thoughts were spilling out of his mouth faster than he could make them stop. Keith lowered his head once again as the tears started overflowing without his permission. He babbled apologies over and over in between sobs, "I don't want to see anyone else get hurt─ I-I just w-want this fucking war t-to b-be done with. I'm tired... I'm sick and tired of h-he-hearing e-ev-veryone always t-tell─ They're a-always telling me t-to stop throwing mys-self into d-danger..."

"They have a good reason behind that," he answered Keith, pathetically, through his own tears. Matt hugged him close as if it would bring all Keith's broken pieces back together.

"I'm so sc-scared. I'm so fucking scared and I honestly d-do-don't wanna die, Matt. I don't wanna die. I don't want anyone to die anymore!"

"No one does."

Matt pulled his arms around Keith even tighter, wondering if he could feel just how bad Matt regretted yelling at him in such a way. "It's not your fault, okay? I was just... I was mad, yeah, I admit. You're a soldier giving it your all, but deep down you're still just a person fumbling through his days in this mess of a life. No one can blame you. No one would. And if they ever dared, I'd beat the hell out of them, because this shit's the worst." He managed to draw a weak, wet laugh from Keith then. "Shiro didn't put so much effort into getting you into the Garrison for nothing. Lance doesn't spend hours teasing you just to lose you. Hunk doesn't make your favorite treats on your bad days to see you get obliterated by that evil witch. Pidge doesn't tweak the training bots to help you get stronger just to watch you get destroyed by enemy sentries. Coran and Allura don't give this war everything they've got just for you to never make it back home."

"You noticed all of that?"

"I don't look out for you after years of growing up with you and Shiro in my life just to have it end so soon."

Keith tried to calm down, tried to keep his voice from wavering. He tried to stop his body from shaking so much. Matt rubbed his back soothingly and let him cry on his shoulder for as long as it took. "I don't want to see any of you hurt any further," Keith said. The boy could feel how sore his throat was from letting his sobs roar out of him while they wracked his body. He looked like a wreck, tear-stained face in all its glory. Keith clung onto Matt while he still could. He couldn't even find a reason to be ashamed about his brave face dissolving so easily in front of Matt. "Everything I do out there, I do it with you all in mind... I'd tell myself that if it were anyone else, it wouldn't matter that much, but I forgot how much you guys cared. Sometimes that happens... I'll forget that you guys are... well, you guys are my family. I don't  _mean_ to─ I don't control whether or not I forget it, I just do." Keith sniffled and pulled back, wiping his tears away with his sleeve. "When I was flying towards the shield, there was a voice inside my head telling me I'd regret not getting to properly say goodbye. A voice telling me I'll miss all of you so bad, it'd be worse than dying. I'd never get to see if Shiro ever found happiness again, or if Lance ever finally scored himself a date, or if you and Pidge made Earth some sort of technology wonderland, or if Hunk ever got to see his family again─ if  _any_ of you ever got to see your families again..."

He took a long, deep breath to help ease his nerves. Every part of him was screaming inside his head. Keith could hear the voices of everyone who's ever shown him that they cared, all crowding him at once, too much to take in. Matt's hushed voice cleared them away, accompanied by the hand holding tightly onto his arm. Matt looked just as messed up as he did.

His usually calm eyes were frantic and overflowing with tears. Matt's hair and clothes looked like they were blown in multiple different directions at the same time. The arms and legs that used to be scrawny were packed with more flesh and muscle, and the body that hadn't been made for fighting was covered in various injuries ranging from minor to serious. It was in that moment, looking back and forth between himself and Matt, that Keith knew he wasn't alone anymore. He didn't have to be. Matt was right; other people were suffering just as badly as he was.

"You don't have to play hero and be there for everyone without letting someone be there for you. That's not what real heroes do, that's what dumbasses do. If you want to be a real hero, Keith, you have to rely on others."

"Nobody wants to die..."

Matt looked confused, brows furrowing just slightly, "What? Uhm... yeah. Yeah, that's right, no one wants to die."

"Not now, not today, not ever. Nobody... Nobody wants to be here, but they all stayed."

"Are you feeling any better? Do you want some water?"

"Thank you, Matt. I guess I didn't know how much I needed that... pep talk. Or whatever it was. You knocked some sense into me for sure. And I'm sorry, again. For being stupid."

The comms specialist-turned-rebel fighter smiled widely despite the previous mood of the conversation. He punched Keith's shoulder lightly, in a teasing manner. "I'm not mad so you don't have to apologize for anything. I didn't mean to rip into you like that... it's just─ Naturally, I worry. I worry a lot. Whenever Pidge would come home upset because some bullies at school picked on her, I worried about whether or not she would still pursue her dream. Looking at you, I don't exactly see Katie, but I see someone who I'd treat the same either way. Someone I  _have_ been treating the same ever since I met him. Shiro thought of you like a brother, so who am I to deny that connection between my best friend and his second in command?"

"Now that you've lectured me, you're not allowed to go making those same decisions. Fair?"

"You bet your bayard I'm not ever making those choices. Hell no. I value getting to see my little sister and her friends to the next day, thank you."

Both males laughed even if it caused the wounds on their bodies to stretch and burn. It was a reminder that they were still alive. A reminder that there was still something to fight for and a reason to look ahead to the future.

Matt put a hand on Keith's head and messed up his hair in a brotherly fashion. "The next time you come up with some dramatic hero's death, run it by me first, alright? Shiro and I get ten years taken off our lifespans every time our little Keefy puts himself in danger." Keith rolled his eyes but smiled anyways. He nodded. "I will," he answered. "Can we go meet up with everyone else now? I think they're worried sick by this point."

"Get ready to be tackled in a hug and drenched with their tears."

"We'll have to brace for impact before opening the door."

They continued throwing around light jokes about how emotional their space family could be while they walked down the hall together. Sure enough, they were assaulted with affection and shoved to the ground upon entering the room. Pidge was the first to move. She threw herself at Matt and Keith, then it was Lance, and then Hunk, and everyone else joined in on the dog pile. Between carrying the weight of the universe on their shoulders and the pressure of war, being crushed under their friends and family was the best feeling they could name.


End file.
